Football is increasingly becoming a young man's game. If you look across all levels of football, from the college level to the professional ranks, young coaches and executives are on the rise in the sport.
Some of the top coaches in the sport, like Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham and Oregon’s Dan Lanning are 40 years old or younger, and new first-year coaches, like Kentucky’s Will Stein and Kansas State’s Collin Klein, are also under 40.
Although a new youth movement is starting to take over professional and college football, none of those coaches are as young as Ohio’s new general manager, Shaun Cook, who arrives in Athens as a first-time general manager at just 29 years old.
Cook, a Nashville native, bounced around college football after graduating from the University of Tennessee in 2019. It was while he was a Volunteer that he knew he wanted to make his career in college football.
“Second semester (of my freshman year), I got into the football program in a scouting, player personnel intern role, and then figured out that's what I wanted to do with my career,” Cook said. “I had no idea that was a career, but I found my way into it.”
Following his graduation, Cook stayed in the Southeastern Conference, as he took a job with his old rivals in his hometown college team in Vanderbilt. He worked with the Commodores as a football personnel and recruiting assistant, a title he held at many other programs in the future.
Cook was a young, post-graduate kid looking for a way into a very tough and competitive industry in college football, and he got the job with Vanderbilt after some help from an old coach.
“It's a really competitive industry coming out of school, so you kind of just take the job to get in,” Cook said. “I took a really low-paying job at Vanderbilt … one of my high school coaches was in their recruiting department, so he helped me get on there. He's the current (general manager) over at Memphis right now, Corey Phillips.”
After his time at Vanderbilt, Cook took a couple of other jobs, as he headed north to New York to work not for a college football team, but The 33rd Team, an NFL analytics and content company. Cook continued his work as a scout there, but just for six months.
The stint working for The 33rd Team was quick, and he jumped to UConn to get back into a role in player personnel in college football.
By the time he wrapped his work with the Huskies, Cook bounced from three jobs in less than three years, moving around the country and learning insight about how unpredictable the sports industry can be.
“I think it teaches you to be ready for anything in college football,” Cook said with a laugh. “It changes year to year … a lot of those coaches go into fight or flight mode, so you kind of learn how to navigate through that and try to just put your head down and work.”
Cook finally found some stability as he made his way back down South when he took a job at Duke as the assistant director of scouting for two years before he went back to the SEC to work at Texas A&M as the assistant director of player personnel.
He was with the Aggies for two years as well. He was brought over by former Duke head coach and current Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko.
“My roots are in the SEC, so that was nice getting back to that level of football,” Cook said. “(It was a) highly competitive environment, trying to go after the best in the country, trying to compete for national championships at the time, so it was a good experience, but I was in a similar role at Duke, which is why I wanted to get into an executive role.”
Cook found that executive role in Athens, working closely with first-year head coach John Hauser.
“Sometimes you interview (for) these jobs, and the head coach isn't the same person as you interview initially, coach Hauser is not that way at all,” Cook said. “All we want to do is win in the end. As long as you're trying to do that (the relationship will be good).”
The general manager job is still very new in college football, and the role at Ohio is even fresher, as Cook is just the second ever general manager in the history of Ohio’s football program.
The job is very broad and all-encompassing, especially at a smaller school in the Mid-American Conference like Ohio.
“I'm overseeing all of recruiting, all of scouting, kind of overseeing a little bit of our creative vision, helping coach Hauser build a roster, (I’m) involved in summer camps, our revenue share budget, preparing for the transfer portal’s next cycle, as well as trying to sign the 2027 high school class,” Cook said. “I think you get thrown into a lot of different things, which is good. I try to be flexible, but it's definitely an all-encompassing role, which is what I was looking for.”
